Archaeologists unearth remains of oldest Norman ever found which ‘fills gap in our knowledge of pre-Neanderthal evolution’ – “On a bend of the river Seine near Rouen in Normandy, archaeologists have found the remains of the oldest Norman ever discovered. The three bones from the left arm of a pre-Neanderthal should shed fresh light on a little-known period. In particular, they could help scientists to understand the evolution of the squat, muscular hunters who died out 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, just after the first humans arrived in what is now Europe. The discovery of the bones at Tourville-la-Rivière, 14km south of Rouen, is exceptional because ‘this is a period with very few fossils’, according to Bruno Maureille, a palaeontologist at the National Centre for Scientific Research. He said the arm bones, dating from 200,000 years ago, in the Middle Pleistocene era, were ‘the only known example from northern Europe’.”

Europe the birthplace of art? Cave art shows Indonesia has a claim – “Using this method, the researchers determined that one of the hand stencils they sampled was made at least 39,900 years ago and that a painting of an animal known as a pig deer was at least 35,400 years old. In Europe, the oldest known cave painting was of a red disk found in a cave in El Castillo, Spain, that has a minimum age of 40,800 years. The earliest figurative painting, of a rhinoceros, was found in the Chauvet Cave in France; it goes back 38,827 years.”

Draft of paper about Amish – “[T]he difference in mean AQ [‘amishness’] between young Amish men and their non-Amish neighbors is about 2.8 standard deviations. In the IQ world this would correspond to a group different of 42 points. In the stature world this would correspond to a height difference of about 8 inches.” – from henry harpending. see also Amish v. English from steve sailer.

Evolutionary behavioral genetics – “We describe the scientific enterprise at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics — a field that could be termed Evolutionary Behavioral Genetics — and how modern genetic data is revolutionizing our ability to test questions in this field.”

coolest story! a MUST READ!: Finding Clues in Genes of ‘Exceptional Responders’ – “One study at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center tested a drug called everolimus that is approved for kidney and breast cancer. Researchers asked if it could treat bladder cancer. Forty-five patients received the drug. Two responded. ‘The verdict was, “O.K., I guess everolimus does not work in bladder cancer,” ‘ said Dr. David Solit, the principal investigator. But then there were those two patients — one, in particular. Her cancer had spread to her abdomen. She was expected to live less than a year, and there was no treatment for her. But with everolimus, her tumors disappeared. ‘I was at a clinical meeting, and everyone was saying this drug did not work,’ Dr. Solit said. ‘I said, “It worked for her.” ‘ The investigators found out why. Her cancer had a mutation in a gene that made it dependent on a protein, mTOR, for growth. Everolimus squelches the activity of mTOR. The woman is still taking everolimus, and her cancer has not recurred.”

The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence – “Genetic research has shown that intelligence makes a major contribution to the heritability of educational achievement. However, we show that other broad domains of behavior such as personality and psychopathology also account for genetic influence on GCSE scores beyond that predicted by intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE scores. These results underline the importance of genetics in educational achievement and its correlates.” – (because there’s more to hbd than just iq!)

The role of lactase persistence in precolonial development – “It is shown through a number of specifications that country-level variation in the frequency of lactase persistence is positively and significantly related to population density in 1,500 CE; specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the frequency of lactase persistent individuals (roughly 24 percentage points) is associated with roughly a 40 % increase in precolonial population density.”

Big Chickens – “More evidence that common genetic variants can produce many standard deviations of change in average phenotype.”

The Giant Mutations in the Human Genome – “It turns out that there is a class of giant DNA mutations that share features of developmental disorders: They are surprisingly common, frustratingly diverse, and hard to categorize. Researchers are now discovering that these mutations play a big role in developmental delay disorders. The baffling symptoms are a consequence of the underlying genetic turmoil…. These large mutations are called ‘copy number variants’ or CNVs, and they add or subtract copies of genes.”

Later school start time ‘may boost GCSE results’ – “Thousands of teenagers are to get an extra hour in bed in a trial to see whether later school start times can boost GCSE results. University of Oxford researchers say teenagers start functioning properly two hours later than older adults…. Prof Russell Foster, director of sleep and circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, said that getting a teenager to start their day at 07:00 is like an adult starting theirs at 05:00.”

Africa is on time – “Using survey data on African income distributions and national accounts GDP, we estimate income distributions, poverty rates, and inequality indices for African countries for the period 1990–2011. We show that: (1) African poverty is falling rapidly…. All classes of countries, including those with disadvantageous geography and history, experience reductions in poverty. In particular, poverty fell for both landlocked as well as coastal countries; for mineral-rich as well as mineral-poor countries; for countries with favorable or with unfavorable agriculture; for countries regardless of colonial origin; and for countries with below- or above-median slave exports per capita during the African slave trade.” – h/t mugwump!

Ethnic Divisions and Production in Firms – “A body of literature suggests that ethnic heterogeneity limits economic growth. This paper provides microeconometric evidence on the direct effect of ethnic divisions on productivity. In team production at a plant in Kenya, an upstream worker supplies and distributes flowers to two downstream workers who assemble them into bunches. The plant uses an essentially random rotation process to assign workers to positions, leading to three types of teams: (a) ethnically homogeneous teams, and teams in which (b) one or (c) both downstream workers belong to a tribe in rivalry with the upstream worker’s tribe. I find strong evidence that upstream workers undersupply non-coethnic downstream workers (vertical discrimination) and shift flowers from non-coethnic to coethnic downstream workers (horizontal discrimination), at the cost of lower own pay and total output.” – spite! it’s so funny. – h/t ben southwood!

(Re)Becoming Human – “As the sun set over Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, nearly thirty minutes had passed since I had inserted a turkey baster into my bum and injected the feces of a Hadza man – a member of one of the last remaining hunter-gatherers tribes in the world – into the nether regions of my distal colon. I struggled to keep my legs in the air with my toes pointing towards what I thought was the faint outline of the Southern Cross rising in the evening sky. With my hands under my hips – and butt perched against a large rock for support – I peddled an imaginary upside down bicycle in the air to pass the time as I struggled to make sure my new gut ecosystem stayed put inside me. With my butt cheeks flexed and my, you know what puckered, I wondered if I had just made a terrible mistake….”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Around the world in 400,000 years: Journey of the red fox – “[T]his new research shows that the red foxes of North America and Eurasia have been almost entirely reproductively isolated from one another for roughly 400,000 years. During this time, the North American red fox evolved into a new species distinct from its Old World ancestors…. The new genetic research further suggests that the first red foxes originated in the Middle East before beginning their journey of colonization across Eurasia to Siberia, across the Bering Strait and into North America, where they eventually founded the North American population.”

since all the other kids are doin’ it, here’s my contribution to feed the growing, and soon to be unstoppable, manosphere/hbd/alt-right chicks-dig-jerks meme!

i’ve actually been sitting on this one for a while — since may when this news story was published — ’cause these men just make me sick. no, they really do. my stomach really does get upset whenever i think about the oxford muslim “groomers” (never mind my blood pressure!). =/ i had almost decided not to write about them again, but … cr*p … ok … here we go:

“Mohammed, who has four children by two different women, was arguably the most sadistic member of the sex gang.

“The 38-year-old groomed one of the girls from the age of 11, forced her to have an abortion and even branded her as his property….

“Mohammed has been married for seven years to a woman he met on holiday in Morocco. They have three children and he has a fourth child with an unknown English woman.“

jesus! this guy has reproduced! =/ by TWO different women. ugh.

and here’s his brother — who’s reproduced, too!:

“Bassam, a 33-year-old security guard and university drop-out, was given the nickname ‘Sam The Rapist’ by one of the victims after he forced himself on her at a down-at-heel Oxford guest house in 2006.

“During the trial it emerged that, like his brother, Bassam relished beating and humiliating girls….

“Bassam’s father celebrated when he won a place at De Montfort University in Leicester to study media.

“However, after two years he dropped out and started work on security at football matches.

“He was married to an Indian woman for four years but the relationship broke down because she was unable to provide him with children.

“Bassam went on to have a relationship with a woman called Paula Pitson, 28, with whom he has two children. Before he was found guilty, his father admitted Bassam was a ladies’ man.

“He said: ‘Even when he was younger he would have lots of young girls coming to the house asking for him. He’s a good looking boy and girls have always liked him.’“

he’s a good looking boy? can’t say as i see it myself, but maybe i need to put my glasses on. or my beer goggles!

so these two evil b*st*rds have managed to reproduce, the older brother by a couple of women, and the younger one — well, only by one woman, but only because his wife didn’t ever get pregnant. AND, if the father’s telling the truth, he was something of a ladies’ man.

and the point is … *sigh* … i have a hard time believing these guys managed to be super sweet nice people in their ordinary lives and then turned into abusive, evil torturers only when they were with their english victims. i think it’s safe to presume that they probably have jerky personalities in general and behaved as such most of their adult lives.

and this, as in so many other instances, prolly attracted the women. (*facepalm*)

and then there’s also their english victims. were they attracted by these jerks being jerks? the official story is that these men gave the girls presents and were nice to them in order to “groom” them, but is that the whole story? who knows? maybe the girls, too, were attra….

but i’m not even gonna go there. i’ve taken enough red pills to last me a lifetime, thankuverymuch! i think i’ll pass on this one. contemplate the possibility on your own and discuss among yourselves, if you like.

in any case, we’ve got another shining example here of how chicks dig jerks.

The Problem with Writing about Race – “One of the purposes of this site was to develop something called ‘Liberal Race Realism,’ which is a movement that I started. Admittedly, it hasn’t gone anywhere at all. Actually, it has been a complete failure. But that is ok. Really what it shows though is just how messed up people, especially Americans, are about race.” – from robert lindsay via hbdbibliography.

White skin privilege – “There is a widespread belief, particularly among proponents of whiteness studies, that notions of beauty are determined by power relationships…. This belief is so entrenched that little concern is shown for counterfactual evidence, such as the medieval trade in fair-skinned women for clients in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia…. [T]his pattern is inconsistent with the belief that power relationships determine notions of beauty.” – from peter frost.

‘Lower BMI mark for ethnic groups’ – “The standard test to see whether people are a healthy weight does not work consistently across different ethnicities, [u.k.] health officials have said.” – via v.a.w.

DNA Markers in Low-IQ Autism Suggest Heredity – “A new study in the American Journal of Human Genetics finds evidence that there may often be a recessive, inherited genetic contribution in autism with significant intellectual disability.”

“- Fighting broke out in the dock as two other defendants were cleared
– Seven men found guilty of catalogue of offences involving underage girl
– Verdicts delivered at Old Bailey at the end of a five month trial
– The seven men have been remanded in custody for sentencing next month
– Girls were so young ‘they had just stopped believing in the Easter bunny when they were corrupted’
– Police identified as many as 22 girls who were ‘groomed, corrupted, brainwashed and abused and then sold for sex and worse’
– Two of the three care homes where victims of the Oxford sex ring lived have been closed down but only one member of staff was sacked

“Police and social workers apologised today for not protecting vulnerable schoolgirls who were sexually abused and exploited by a paedophile ring….”

bit late.

“The admissions of failure which saw the girls being drugged and raped when they were supposed to be in the care of the authorities came as seven men were found guilty of a catalogue of offences including rape, trafficking and organising prostitution over eight years involving girls as young as 11 in the Oxford area.

“In dramatic scenes, fighting broke out in the dock at the Old Bailey as two other defendants were cleared.

“The girls targeted by the Oxford sex ring were so young ‘they had just stopped believing in the Easter bunny’ when they were ‘corrupted entirely’ by the extreme abuse, the retired lead detective said.

“He said that the seven predators who ran the organised child sex ring ‘identified the most vulnerable girls in our society and corrupted them entirely’.

“Simon Morton, who was then an acting Detective Chief Inspector, said he identified as many as 22 girls who were ‘groomed, corrupted, brainwashed and abused and then sold for sex and worse’ by the gang for ‘the best part of a decade.’

“However, the girls suffered from ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, gaining a bizarre trust in their captors, until his investigation was able to win them over and allow the girls to break their silence….

“The trial followed the jailing last year of Asian men in Rochdale for abusing vulnerable girls, another case where chances to stop the gang were missed….

“Police have arrested a further nine men from the Oxford area under Operation Bullfinch….”

i had intended on posting about this a lot, but the topic makes my blood pressure go up (no joke), so i’ve had to avoid it. but now i see that douglas murray referred to it in an article of his in standpoint, so i thought i’d at least quote him on it and maybe throw in some links to a few news stories.

operation bullfinch, in case you haven’t heard — and you may not have even if you live in the u.k., the media coverage has been so shamefully lacking — is an investigation into yet another one of these muslim-men-“grooming”-young-white-girls cases in the u.k. yes, ANOTHER one — not to be confused with what happened in rotherham which i posted about last autumn — and not to be confused with whatever the h*ll was going on here in birmingham. no, operation bullfinch was an investigation of a “grooming” case in oxfordshire which has now been brought to trial.

here from murray (you should read his whole article, btw, which is on immigration in general — great stuff):

“… Although immigration has boosted the economy and made Britain a more diverse and in some ways interesting place, it has also made us poorer, drained our resources and brought cultural practices we could happily do without. In January a gang of nine Muslim men — seven of Pakistani origin, two from North Africa — went on trial at the Old Bailey for the sex trafficking of children from the ages of 11 to 15. One of the victims sold into slavery was a girl of 11. She was branded with the initial of her ‘owner’ abuser: ‘M’ for Mohammed. The court heard that Mohammed ‘branded her to make her his property and to ensure others knew about it’. This did not happen in some Saudi or Pakistani backwater, but in Oxfordshire from 2004 to 2012.

“Of course gang-rape and child abuse are not the preserve of immigrants. But as recent child rape-gang cases in the north of England have also shown, there are specific cultural ideas and attitudes that some immigrants bring with them — about women, other races and sexual minorities — which are not even medieval yet….“

indeed.

“Attempts to impose parallel legal systems, ‘blasphemy laws’, and other new ‘norms’ of behaviour are subtler versions of the same. But so fearful of ‘racism’ and so in retreat is the core culture that it can barely rouse itself even to point any of this out. What media reporting there is of cases such as that in Oxfordshire is not only scant and periodic, but fearful and hedged with caveats to the point of obliqueness….”
_____

the best reporting on this trial, which is still ongoing (we’re now up to day 26), has come out of a local oxford paper, The Oxford Times (here’s their Operation Bullfinch archive page). the case, so far anyway, seems mostly to be based on testimony from the girls (now women), some friends of the girls, and some social workers. there might be some other witnesses, too, but like i said, i haven’t been following the case all that closely.

what’s come out in the testimonies so far will make your stomach turn. if even only half of it is true…:

“The prosecution has opened its case at the Old Bailey against nine men, aged between 24 and 38, accused of sexually exploiting six under-age girls in the Oxford area….

“The court heard that the nine men accused of sexually abusing young girls in Oxford ‘ensured girls were guarded so that they could not escape’.

“The charges, spanning a period from 2004 to January of last year, relate to offences that are alleged to have been committed against girls aged between 11 and 16. They took 30 minutes to be read out in court.

“Jurors at the Old Bailey were told that one alleged victim, who cannot be named, was ‘sold’ to Mohammed Karrar at 11 to ‘cure her bad attitude’, then repeatedly raped by him and his brother, Bassam Karrar.

“The court was told that Mohammed Karrar charged other men £400 to £600 to rape the girl, now in her 20s, in a way she described as ‘torture’ until she was 15. She also claimed to be injected with heroin.

“After being impregnated by a member of the group at age 12, the court heard that Mohammed Karrar arranged for her to have an illegal abortion in a back-room in Reading. The girl claims she was also beaten for falling pregnant.

“Jurors were also told that on one occasion Karrar heated a hair pin with a lighter and branded the girl’s buttock with the the letter M as he claimed to ‘own her’….”
_____

“A TEENAGER yesterday told a jury she was physically abused by a man who charged £600 for others to have sex with her….

“The woman is one of six to claim they were groomed and abused by nine men accused of running a child sex exploitation gang in Oxford. Known as Girl 4, as she cannot be named, she says brothers Mohammed and Bassam Karrar raped and prostituted her between the ages of 11 and 15.

“On Wednesday she told the jury Mohammed Karrar, 38, made her feel like they were in a relationship before making her have sex with other men.

“Yesterday, she said when she was 12 he physically abused her as well.

“The young woman said the two brothers would rape her together….

“Giving evidence through a video link, the teenager said when she was 12, Mohammed Karrar tried to rape her in a bathroom, but she grabbed his knife and threatened to stab him.

“He took her downstairs and hit her around the head with a metal baseball bat, the court heard.

“When she came round he was assaulting her with the bat handle, the jury heard….

“She said Mohammed Karrar would take her to hotels and private properties to serve drink, drugs, and provide sex services.

“There would be up to 15 men and it could happen up to four times a week, the court heard.

“The child was made to act out men’s ‘weird fantasies’ and was sexually assaulted with knife handles and meat cleavers, the court heard….”
_____

i’ll stop there.

but before i end this post — the msm is bad, but i just want to have a go at the social workers and teachers and police, etc. — the people charged with looking after these girls who are all from low-class, troubled backgrounds. WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!: